Death By Adulting
A podcast focused on helping you make decisions today that you won't regret tomorrow. Hosted by Dr. Steve and Megan Scheibner. The Scheibners share wisdom and advice regarding marriage, parenting, dating, communication and even sex.
Death By Adulting
From Chaos to Calm: Practical Tips for Everyday Serenity
Managing stress in today’s hectic world can seem impossible, but what if we told you that balance is within reach? On this enlightening episode of "Death by Adulting," we explore our top 10 tips for stress management, starting with the profound power of prayer. Learn how incorporating prayer into your daily routine can offer a sense of calm and center, drawing on personal stories that highlight its transformative effects on our lives and our children, especially during high-anxiety moments.
We then shift gears to provide you with practical, actionable strategies for managing stress effectively. Discover why seeking professional counsel trumps relying on peers or the internet, and get our best tips for achieving restful sleep and mindful eating. From creating the perfect sleep environment to understanding the impact of sugar and caffeine on your stress levels, we’ve got you covered with insights that aim to improve mental health through holistic and balanced approaches.
Our journey doesn’t stop there. We delve into the importance of healthy eating and regular exercise, sharing personal experiences such as an unforgettable hiking trip in Liechtenstein. Additionally, we discuss the power of forgiveness, the value of building community, and the crucial role of effective communication in reducing stress and fostering healthier relationships. Join us for this comprehensive guide to navigating the challenges of adulting with grace and resilience, filled with heartfelt insights and practical tips.
On this episode of Death by Adulting. What do Swedish fish, hot fudge sundaes and filet mignon have to do with stress? Why washing dishes and scrubbing toilets is good for your mental health. Is Siri as smart as she claims to be? And much, much more? Roll the intro.
Speaker 2:I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger, ever wish you could ask older you if the decisions you made today turned out okay tomorrow. Welcome to Death by Adulting. You know, in this crazy world of adult living, sometimes the only thing we know for sure is that we don't have to like it, we just have to do it. And if we have to do it, and if we have to do it anyway, why not do it? Well, that's why we're here. We're Dr Steve and Megan Scheibner, and you can think of us as your personal on-demand old farts. We're here to help you make great decisions today that you'll be proud of tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome back to Death by Adulting. And I'm Megan Scheibner, with my host, dr Steve Scheibner. And today's a little different. We're going to do a little different episode. We've been kind of building to this for the last four episodes, I think. We've been talking about stress and anxiety and the people who cause us stress in our lives, some of the things that cause us stress, and it all kind of comes to the peak today when we talk about our top 10 tips for a stress-managed life. I would say stress-free, but really, sometimes stress is good for us, right? We need a little stress, and there's always going to be stress in our life, so we want to talk about how we're going to manage it, and we've come up with our top 10 tips. So get ready, here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stress-free is not really realistic. Everybody has stress in their lives and if you didn't have any stress I guess you'd be like a jellyfish. But you know, we got to have a little bit of a backbone to deal with the normal stuff on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:I think I could have a stress life that was like, oh, it's so hard to get the bonbon package open. Yeah, Well, you know I mean my blanket isn't laid out on the sand right.
Speaker 1:Those are called 20 somethings, honey. I can pretend they live in your basement, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Exactly, All right.
Speaker 2:So our top 10 tips boy say that five times fast for a stress managed life, and tip number one is this there is someone who can help with your stress much more than we can or your friends can, or the internet can, and that is the Lord. And so our number one tip is this learn how to pray, pray often, pray earnestly. Go to the Lord in prayer, because really he's the one who has the answers when we feel confused, when we feel frustrated. It's not that God hopes we'll come to him. He's eagerly waiting for us to come to him. And so I think for myself, I used to carry a lot more stress, but the more I kind of practiced and prayer is a practice, it's a habitual thing the more I practice prayer, and the quicker I ran to it, rather than you know a last resort, the less stress I felt in my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. You know that you mentioned prayer, because there's so many substitutes for it these days in there and they're not very good substitutes. Prayer's been around for thousands of years. I mean it's you don't have. I don't want to say, I want to say this right away you don't have to be religious to pray. You really ought to have a relationship with God to pray, and that's two different things and maybe we'll unwrap that a little bit more in another episode. But prayer is a very centering, focusing thing that calms you down. It's like meditation, uh. But when you think about yoga and all the different applications today of kind of centering yourself and being calm, and you know, uh, you know, turn on the little scent things so you smell right, and all that stuff, all of that is a just a sloppy substitute for prayer. Having a having an active prayer life where you, you know, pray all the time. I, I, I don't stop and have an organized prayer, uh, but the only organized prayer I have is just before dinner, you know in Grayson's and that's pretty much.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, it's pretty much a road thing, but you and I get together. We read our Bible in the morning and then we have a time of prayer.
Speaker 1:And it's not always the same prayer. Sometimes we pray about the kids, sometimes we pray about ourselves, sometimes we pray about health. Sometimes we just don't even know what to pray about, so we just kind of freewheel it. It's a conversation with God where you're talking to him one-on-one and you've got to have that relationship with God to be able to do that. But with that relationship comes the freedom, like a child, to be able to talk to your parent and also your best friend at the same time. The benefits of all that are really terrific. It calms you down and centers you. It gets you focused and I think, at least for me. More importantly, it reminds me that I'm subject to something bigger than myself. I'm plugged into something bigger than myself and the stresses and anxieties of the day aren't really all that important. God can handle anything, but he wants me also to hand it over to him, right.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, I think it's interesting what you said about sometimes we have that kind of freewheeling prayer and I think back to some of the sweetest prayer times I had were with our mostly our daughters not our sons as much but when you could, when I could tell that they were just all spooled up and and life seemed too hard, there was too much drama, they were anxious, they were stressed out and we would go on prayer walks with with no agenda, and I would pray for a little bit and they'd pray for a little bit, and I'd pray and they'd pray, and often what happened was they shared in prayer with me things that they they didn't even know they needed to share with me and it gave me just a little open, open window into their heart.
Speaker 2:But the same is true with a friend. You know I said put prayer as our number one, but having someone that you pray with. Now we have each other because we're spouses. But what if you're not married? Maybe it's a friend from church or a roommate that you know that when you need someone to walk alongside you in prayer, you can go to them and say, hey, can we just talk to God together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so prayer is number one on our list. Number two is this and this seems like prayer, but it's a little different Seek counsel when you're really struggling with an anxious. Maybe it's a decision or a relationship or just the pressure of the world. I mean, there's lots in our world to make us stressed and anxious. Seek wise counsel.
Speaker 1:Right, and let me make a little plug for us, because we actually are counselors. We train other people to be counselors, but we do a tremendous amount of counseling ourselves. And if you're watching this episode or listening to it on any of the podcast services, you're thinking you know, I don't know if I want to go to counseling. I probably need to. My marriage is in trouble and you know what? If you were sick, you'd go to a doctor, right, if you had legal problems, you'd hire a lawyer. You wouldn't give it a second thought. You're one of those. But if you have emotional or relational problems, you just kind of tough it out and you don't ever reach out for help.
Speaker 1:And the nice thing about us is we're not in your circle of influence, right? You can reach out to Steve and Megan. Just go to characterhealthcom, click on the contact us tab. It comes straight to us. Introduce yourself, we'll give you a phone call and let's start that discussion, cause you're not going to run into us on Sunday. You're not going to run into us at the grocery store. It's nice to be able to talk to somebody that's trained, has years and years of experience. We've been at this for 30 years counseling people, so we just had a couple in and it was really a great resolution. After a couple of days counseling with them Felt really good about that one, so take us up on that offer right? Counseling is not. It shouldn't be as stigmatized as people make it. It's really a fine tune if you think about it.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting thing too, because obviously we're Christians, and outside the world of Christianity, outside the church, everybody goes to therapy. They do, but within the church it's somehow. There's a stigma, and I'll be. I'll be honest. When you were a pastor, the most peaceful people we knew and the best couples we knew were the ones that came often for counsel, and it wasn't like big things they were coming for, it was little. Like we just can't come to an accord on this.
Speaker 1:And they just needed a third party and they needed some help. They, they needed somebody else to look at it from the 30,000 foot view, and that was us or they. Their children were becoming teenagers and they were kind of concerned about that transition. So they came to us and said, hey, let's sit down for a couple of times and talk about the transition. Those are really wonderful things to do, but if your marriage is hurting or any relationship you have is in crisis, maybe with your children, give us a ring. You know, send us a contact us uh email and we'll start the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and I don't think we can move on from this without discussing there are some really poor places to go for counsel. So, you know, when you have a problem and you're struggling and you're feeling anxious and stressed, please, please, don't Google it Right, because you're going to get one point six million answers and maybe you'll take the top one because it seems like the path of least discomfort. But you need something, someone who can give you true counsel, who really is in a position to give good counsel. That's probably not your peers.
Speaker 2:Now, can your peers give you, can they sympathize with you? And can they say, I don't know, maybe you should go talk to somebody else? Yeah, they could do that. Can they say, I don't know, maybe you should go talk to somebody else. Yeah, they could do that. But make sure you find someone who really could give counsel, whether it's a professional counselor or a pastor. Um, if you're in a, you know someone who, if you're involved in a ministry on campus it perhaps it's the person who leads the campus ministry but make sure it's somebody who can give you good counsel.
Speaker 1:You know, Googling something is an ocean of information, but you're starving for wisdom. There's no wisdom on the internet.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely not All right. So this next one is a really practical one to manage stress and it's this Get enough sleep, go to bed. And I know for young moms and even older moms and grandmoms, the end of the day is the time that we have time to get on the internet and look at Facebook and look at Instagram and look at Pinterest, whatever it is that kind of floats your boat and that robs us of our sleep because we're trying to find that alone time. But our bodies and our mental health need sleep and you know I read a lot of articles about sleep and all the sleep you get before midnight is worth far more to your body than the sleep you get after midnight. So go to bed early and what are some other things you manage? Sleep all the time.
Speaker 1:I study it because I'm a captain at a major airline, so I'm always in a sleep deficit, it seems. And then going overseas and coming back several times a month and they have experts come in and talk to us about managing your level of fatigue. So there's a number of things you can do Stay hydrated, exercise, try to stay in a normal sleep rhythm. But, number one, turn off any of the devices. Turn off your iPad, your phone, anything that would beep at you or anything in the middle of the night or anything that you, halfway, are listening for in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1:If you're texting all night, you're not getting good sleep. You got to get into that REM sleep and it takes about an hour and a half to fall into that REM sleep and then you want to stay in it and then again, about an hour before you wake up up, you have another round of REM sleep. So all that's really good. Most people need about eight hours worth of sleep a day and you might get an eight hour period. But if you're waking up every 44 minutes to send a text, that's not. That's not healthy sleep. So there's a lot of things that you can do to help yourself with this if you want to need to take a cat nap during the day, like, let's say you're tired, but make it and like short some of the, the latin cultures, they take a siesta, right and that's a whole long afternoon off. Keep it short, about 20 minutes. Sit down in a chair, close your eyes, put your head back, be grandpa for 20 minutes. Okay, take a little cat nap. That's more refreshing than an hour and a half nap.
Speaker 2:So there's a little, there's a little pro tip from a guy who manages fatigue all the time. Does it hurt your feelings that I think of you as a sleep zombie?
Speaker 1:I am. I'm practicing for being a great grandpa.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's all right. It's part of how I manage my physical wellbeing, just being in different time zones all the time.
Speaker 2:You mentioned turning off things that we would hear, but I would add to that turning off ambient lights. If you have children, turn off the nightlight. They're not going to sleep as well. Get rid of the computer lights. Shut it down. Shut it down for the night.
Speaker 1:The answer to all that is dark, cool and clean.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately you can't turn off a toddler, but you can teach him to sleep. But that's probably another episode.
Speaker 1:That's another episode, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so get enough sleep. So we've got prayer, right alone and with someone who you can pray with, going to the one who really does have all the answers. Number two was seeking counsel from someone who has something to offer, not from your friends, not from the internet. And then number three was get enough sleep. And now we're on to number four. It's another really practical one is watch what you eat. Watch, watch what you eat and not like, hey, look what I'm eating, but be careful, be cognizant of what you're eating. Now, again, I do a lot of studying on these things because I'm a counselor and I don't believe there's any food group that we have to say never again, I'm never going to have that. I think there is balance. I think God gave us everything to enjoy. You need protein, you need carbs, you need healthy fats, but there are certain foods that don't help with stress and anxiety. So, too much sugar, too much caffeine, swedish fish, hot fudge sundaes right Say Swedish fish five times fast.
Speaker 2:Yes, Swedish fish. That is my favorite food group it is.
Speaker 1:It is a food group for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, swedish fish and cheese curls.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've noticed.
Speaker 2:Yes, noticed. Yes, sticky and yellow, slimy, um, but those things don't help with anxiety and there may be seasons of life it's fine to eat them, but if you already know you're struggling, eliminate those things. Make sure you aren't having too much sugar, you aren't having caffeine late at night. I I used to be someone who could have caffeine. I could have a diet coke sitting by the side of the bed and sip it in the middle of the night. Now I try and cut my caffeine off at noon because I know I sleep better. It's connected the food, the sleep, the anxiety and the stress and I'm going to throw it in this category. We've hit on it in other episodes. But you have to hydrate. Make sure you're getting enough water to be healthy. Right, if your body is healthy, your spirit is healthy because of the prayer, the stress is going to be managed right and taking off the extra weight is just hugely important.
Speaker 1:You know, here in America we are overweight and we have a very fatty diet. A lot of fried foods. We probably overeat, and it's not rocket science. If you're taking in more calories than you burn, you're going to store the extra fat. That's all there is to it. So everybody's metabolism is a little bit different, and their thyroid. I understand all those different arguments but at the end of the day, it's as simple as if you're taking in too many calories and the type of calories you take in. Sometimes some are worse than others.
Speaker 2:So do some research on that.
Speaker 1:And you know what I eat a little bit of everything. I'll eat some fried foods, not a ton, but I'll eat some. I'm not a health freak by any stretch of the imagination, but I always, even from the time I was a little kid, I was allowed to walk away from a plate of food. I didn't have to eat the whole thing, and I appreciate my parents not making me part of the clean plate club all the time where I had to clean off everything on my plate, because if you go to a restaurant now these days they put enough food for three people on the plate and I'll eat and slow down.
Speaker 1:The other thing is the back of your brain, the hypothalamus in the back of your brain. It lags about 15 to 20 minutes behind your stomach. So as you're eating, if you eat too fast, you'll eat too much that little mechanism that tells you that you're full. You were actually full about 20 minutes ago. So take your time, slow down, like they do in Europe, right? You wonder why a lot of the Mediterranean cultures are leaner people. They eat slowly.
Speaker 2:Dinner is more of an event than it is here in America. It's about fellowship around the table.
Speaker 1:You slow down, take your time and all of a sudden you're going to go. Oh, I'm full and half of the stuff is still on your plate. That's fine, Walk away from it.
Speaker 2:Speaking of those Mediterranean cultures, I'm a little bitter.
Speaker 1:We were just in Italy. And how are they so thin?
Speaker 2:with all that pasta just makes me crazy yeah and dairy, all the stuff all the stuff. Um you, you mentioned your parents not making you part of the clean plate club, and we didn't do that with our kids either, and those of you who have young children I would encourage you. We did about, um, we did a tablespoon of food per year of age, so three tablespoons of meat if you're a three-year-old, three tablespoons of vegetable and, and they had to try everything to try everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't have to clean the plate, but they did have to try everything and our kids have a pretty varied palate now and that was more of a character driven thing than anything else.
Speaker 1:I didn't want them to be the type of person that says I'm not going to try that just because they look at it and they think they don't like it right, and who snacked all day? Sure, snacked all day on the salty, sweet things that they did like. But then, when something good for them came around, there they. And then you don't want to have the fight in the battle.
Speaker 1:You know how that goes, mom and dad yeah, a little and just insist that they take one bite of everything and then, if they don't like it, there are things that kids don't like. When I was a kid, I didn't like mushrooms.
Speaker 2:I love mushrooms now you still don't eat Brussels sprouts.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what? I'm also 106 years old, so I don't have to have those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't have to have them Help your kids, because while sugar and caffeine may make our stress worse, it will impact their whole health, their sleep, how well they learn, how well they can relate with other people. They'll just be out of sorts if you're not careful how they're eating. All right, that was number four. Now we're on to number five, and it's another practical one. These all kind of go together, but find a way to get regular exercise. And now I'm not going to tell you you have to go run five miles a day or you need to exercise, and and my contention is it has to be fun, because if it's not fun, you're not going to do it.
Speaker 1:That's correct. You're not going to do it, and so you know. If you're, if you're not a runner, don't force yourself to run. I tried forever and when I was in the military, they made me run and I hated running, and it wasn't because I had bad knees or anything I still have good knees, I just hated running. And you can get as much exercise from walking as you can from running. But find something, like Megan said, that you enjoy. Maybe it's pickleball, maybe it's tennis, maybe it's basketball, whatever. It is just a daily routine, especially like going for a long walk after a meal. That's really good for your digestion and it really burns off some of those extra calories. We just took a two-week vacation and we went over to lichtenstein, which is a very small country in europe, but we paid for an organized tour where we had a different hotel every night and the tour organization moved our bags from one hotel to another. But we hiked. We had an app. We followed the app right from one hotel to another but we hiked.
Speaker 2:We had an app, we followed the app.
Speaker 1:Right From one hotel to the next and it wasn't straight, it was like up into the mountains and down and it was some pretty vigorous hiking and it was about it was 50 miles in five days Five days, yeah, so it was around 10 miles a day. It was awesome If you ever want to go really see someplace and of course, the Alps are gorgeous. But we felt virtuous. We had dessert every night.
Speaker 2:We did and we still lost weight. Yeah, and we had some 13 mile days. And when you have a 13 mile day and then you look at the app the next day and go seven miles, piece of cake Right, but before we went seven miles seemed like oh no, and it's an easier night.
Speaker 1:We all have those smart watches and things that we wear. You know it's an easier night. We all have those smart watches and things that we wear. Set a step goal for the day and then just try to keep up with it and you said it was interesting.
Speaker 2:You said you ran in the military, you ran in high school. But you don't have to. I just was with a friend who was a college runner and she's in her 50s now and I hadn't seen her in probably 30 years and we met up and she still looks great and I said oh, you're running. And she said no, and I said why not? And she said because I realize I hate it and that's okay, it's okay to find something new to do. I was a tennis player. I don't ever get to play tennis but I golf Right and as of today, I think we're up to seven of our eight children has encouraged us to try pickleball it is inevitable.
Speaker 2:It's. One more says it we will and we'll be on the court we'll do an episode on pickleball when we started it will.
Speaker 1:It'll be the cone of shame. The cone of shame, yes, it's inevitable.
Speaker 2:All right, so that that was exercise, right, all right. Number six is this Find a community, find the people you're comfortable with, whether it's your squad or your posse, or whatever you want to call it. Find a group of people that the old word is your simpatico with, because those types of relationships are stress relievers. And, for those of you who tend to be more introverted, um, stress and anxiety will cause you to isolate and, instead of isolating, force yourself to go spend time with those friends. Um, there's great help.
Speaker 1:I think women are naturally better at that than men. They're. They're much more relational than relational than men. They, I think they make friends faster. So, guys for you. You know, you got to get a little bit more creative with it, because we can tend to get really isolated. Uh, how about a men's golf league or men's bowling league or a men's pickleball league? I mean, there may be stuff like that that's out there. You can look that stuff up. There's probably guys that like to bike. Uh, there's, you know, join a motorcycle gang?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, one of our sons. One of our sons. Ever since the pandemic has been part of a. I think it's five o'clock in the morning. He is our son. Five o'clock in the morning, online bible study with five other men yes, um, and they're all over the country. They finally got together at our beach house, but they've never been together in a room before. But but for him he's really busy. He works a lot, he's a filmmaker, he's on the road, but he can fit in five o'clock in the morning. And and what they do is they share their burdens with one another.
Speaker 1:We're just going to. For men, we got to get more creative.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a. We had a pastor, who was also our friend, who used to say burdens are halved and joys are doubled when you share them with someone else, and that's what a sweet community is. Now, if you're in a community that brings you down, that all you do is gossip or all you do is talk about negative things, or every time you're there everybody's complaining about politics, it's okay to graciously bow out of that and look for another community. You can find communities at the library. You know there's lots of. If you're a young mom, just go to the playground, look for another young mom, begin to build relationships that way. Good, all right.
Speaker 2:Number seven is this, and this seems a little counterintuitive. You know, when I'm anxious, I want people to take care of me, and this seems a little counterintuitive. You know, when I'm anxious, I want people to take care of me, but serve others. Serve others, get out, get your hands dirty, scrub some toilets, wash some dishes and find someone worse off than you. And can I tell you there are people worse off than you. And when we spend time serving those people, what it builds in us is gratitude, and gratitude is a great antidote to stress and anxiety.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we counsel almost every couple to do, ultimately, is find some sort of outreach that they're doing together Either it's through the church or it's through the local community but it's serving somebody other than themselves, and the beauty of that is it gets you focused on somebody else that's needs are probably more than yours. Their situation in life is probably not as good as yours. There's always somebody that's worse off than you and you're giving to them. There's somebody who needs, you know, some input in their lives, and it keeps the two of you from going at each other like a couple of chickens in a hen house. If you don't have an outlet for service, you're going to turn inward on each other and we see them just bickering and pecking at each other just like a couple of chickens. It's very healthy to have some place where you serve together.
Speaker 2:I would say. And there's times in families where maybe dad got laid off or mom's on bedrest for a pregnancy and there's the whole family just has that sense of we're being squeezed by stress and and getting outside of your home and going to serve others. And for those of you who are unmarried, can I say service is not for married people only. You have more freedom to serve as a single person than you'll ever have again, and so find ways to go serve. Be that person who, when there's a need other people go. Hey, I know who I could call because she's always eager to serve us. Yeah, well, said, all right. Number eight we're almost to the end here is resolve conflict in a timely manner, because conflict causes stress.
Speaker 1:You mean don't put off till tomorrow which you can put off till the day after tomorrow?
Speaker 2:Well, that would be one way to do it. Yeah, all right, don't?
Speaker 1:let the passage of time take care of interpersonal conflict. Yeah, yeah, most people do. They let the clock pass and then they say, well, it's been too long or it's none of my business anymore, and that you're right, it's. It's very destructive to relationships. Take care of stuff in a in a timely manner. Let's the other person know that you really do care, even though, like you and I, will have conflict. Right, we're married and we've been married for 40 years. Yeah, but we take care of it while it's small, before it gets big.
Speaker 2:And that's why it stays small. What do you say to someone who says I would rather eat tree bark than have to confront someone and have conflict?
Speaker 1:Well, it's not natural to want to confront somebody. You're absolutely right, it's not comfortable, it's not, as our youngest son would say, it's not comfy, but you have to do it. In the intro that you always give, basically, you say you don't have to like it, you just have to do it. Right. 90 of adulting falls into that category. You don't have to like it, you just have to do it. So, folks, get over yourself. Get over it, yeah, and take care of the interpersonal relationships in a timely manner. What I'm telling you right now you know to be true. You know it's true, but you lack the courage to do it. So get into good habit.
Speaker 1:One of the things we teach young couples is to seek forgiveness, and that's different than saying I'm sorry, and listen to me very carefully on this. You can say I'm sorry, but it tells somebody a fact and it tells them how you feel about it, but it doesn't put any medicine on the wound. Fact, and it tells them how you feel about it, but it doesn't put any medicine on the wound. The biblical mandate, especially out of Luke 17 and other places, is to say the words will you please forgive me? And then name what it is, and that's you taking ownership of whatever you did that was wrong and in in a relationship that's been around for any time.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch of things that you can seek the other person's forgiveness for. It's amazing, absolutely amazing, how powerful seeking forgiveness, saying the words will you please forgive me. It's powerful. It's like you wipe the slate clean and you look at that person and you go, wow, I love you Because it demonstrates humility and you like being around people who are truly humble. So be humble yourself. Right? James, chapter four and verse six, says God's opposed to the proud, but shows grace to the humble. That's where I want to live, on that side of the equation, on the grace side, but show grace to one another by seeking forgiveness.
Speaker 2:Well and we know this from experience as well as, maybe the most important as we know it from the Word of God, but from experience that when you seek to resolve conflict, things are sweeter, like the relationship is even better when the conflict has been resolved. But, steve, what is it that makes us so afraid? Or maybe maybe it's not afraid, maybe it's hesitant to just just seek to make things right with people.
Speaker 1:Well it's, it's good old, stubborn, stiff neck pride. Yeah, we're just proud and we don't want to admit that we're wrong, and so we'll rather eat tree bark. We'd rather go over the cliff together as a couple, with our pride firmly intact, than say to the other person will you please forgive me? It's amazing. We've watched couples in counseling where we finally get to a point where we say hey, there's a whole bunch of things that you need to seek each other's forgiveness for, and then we walk them through that restoration model that forgiveness model where they have to say the words will you please forgive me, and then fill in the blank.
Speaker 1:Forgive me for my sarcasm, forgive me for my harshness, forgive me for overlooking you, forgive me for being over controlling. Whatever it is, whatever they have to put in that blank and they just squirm and they don't want to say the words. And there's three reasons why it isn't going to work.
Speaker 2:It's like they all become an eight year old yeah.
Speaker 1:It's, it's just words. Now, if it is just words and you don't mean it, okay that's a different issue, but it's amazing to me how hard, difficult it is to say to somebody will you please forgive me, but it doesn't really cost you anything except your pride. It doesn't cost you a dime and it's powerful stuff, and once you get good at it and you get practiced at it, you want to keep a short list with the other person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because here's why You've got the initial conflict right. And that's causing stress, it's causing anxiety For me. It gives me a stomach ache, I don't feel good. And then there's the added stress and anxiety of I know I ought to get this right but I don't want to, and that's like a double whammy. It's like you can't even lift your head because it just weighs down on you so much. So just do it Just.
Speaker 1:You know be like Nike just do it Right. Probably the number one stress reliever on that whole list of yours is seeking forgiveness in a timely manner and saying the words will you please forgive me? And let me say one last thing about it. It's not a last resort to say that. It ought to be the first resort once you blow it, it ought to be the first thing out of your mouth. Don't wait until you're in crisis mode and the attorney is at the door handing you the divorce paperwork before you go. Oh, please, forgive me. At that point it may be probably is too late, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:And this goes for your children too. Those of you who have children, be quick to seek their forgiveness, to resolve conflict and and be the adult. I mean this is death by adulting. Be the adult, don't think.
Speaker 1:Well, my child should come to me because, whatever you be the adult, you initiate them, you teach them what it's like to resolve conflict it's amazing to me how generous children will be with giving uh, forgiveness, granting forgiveness, and and mom and dad, every one of us has blown it with our kids. We've yelled at them when we shouldn't. Have we got angry when we shouldn't? Have we lost control at some point? Whatever it was? You need to go seek your kids forgiveness and say hey, mommy yelled today and that was wrong. Will you please forgive me?
Speaker 2:All right, that's a powerful one, all right. Number nine is this find fun things to do. That's a great stress reliever and maybe you have fun things you already like to do, but I would say find something new. You know, every day we're growing and changing and getting older, and a lot of the things I thought were really fun when I was 21 and 22, they don't seem so fun anymore, but I have new things that are really fun for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love doing fun things. I we should have put that as number one. Yeah, right, but it's fits there at the end of the list. I, uh uh, I love having a good laugh. Uh, we do pun wars all the time. We're always telling jokes. I mean, laughter is very good for your health, and find any excuse. Find something that you have in common with the people around you and go have a good laugh from time to time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people who laugh loudly and easily are like a magnet. So if you want people to be attracted to you, learn to laugh, especially at yourself. Now, a little caveat here, or a warning maybe, is don't necessarily laugh at other people, but laugh at yourself and laugh long when other people laugh at you. Right, those are happy people and we want to be around them. And being around happy people lifts the load of anxiety from our lives. Yeah, right, those are happy people and we want to be around them. And and being around happy people lifts the load of anxiety from our lives. Correct, all right, one more, and this I don't know, this one might be your favorite. Number 10 is get out and touch the grass. They call it grounding, there's even a word for it now walking barefoot in the grass. So you want to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Go do something real get out of the cubicle that you're in, get away from the screen that you're looking at, get away from this stuff, you know. I mean there's. It's all artificial and it will absolutely suck your soul right out your ears and so that's graphic, it is, but it's we we've lost touch with the, with creation yeah with the real world around us.
Speaker 1:And so if you're sitting there feeding on politics all day long and your feed, you're clicking on one thing after another and you're looking at everybody who's perfect online and you're thinking I don't measure up, all that stuff takes a toll on you. It ratchets up the anxiety and the stress. Go out and roll in the grass, run with your dog, go pet a dog pet a dog when I'm on the road especially there's a lot of people that have dogs now in the airport.
Speaker 1:I'm fine with that. I didn't like it at first but I kind of like it because I'm a dog guy. But I will ask people, I'll ask permission. May I go up and pet your dog? And they go oh yeah, he's friendly. And then I go up and the your dog and they go oh yeah, he's friendly.
Speaker 1:And then I go up and the dogs always love it, yeah, and I know right where to get the dogs right on the top of their back in the towards their tail. Oh they love that spot and they're all like oh, I love this guy.
Speaker 2:You are the dog whisperer.
Speaker 1:I am the dog whisperer, but but find that that outlet, that is somewhere in nature where you're doing something, fresh air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an interesting question to think about. Why did God make things beautiful? And it was for our pleasure. So go to the ocean, go to the mountains, go to the lake, get your feet in the grass, play in the mud, whatever it is. Have a snowball fight yeah, which we did on our 50 mile hike yeah, um, but get out there and and let nature be a natural medicine for your anxiety and your stress.
Speaker 2:All right, so that is all 10 of them, and I'm just going to review them real quickly and then I'll give you 30 seconds to prepare yourself. I want to know which one, for you, is the most practical and impactful. So, number one was this pray. Number two seek counsel from people who can give counsel. Number three get enough sleep. Number four eat and hydrate. Number five exercise and please make it fun. Number six find a community and look until you find one. Do the work to find one. Number seven serve others. There's always someone worse off than you. Number eight resolve conflict in a timely manner. Number nine find fun things to do. We highly recommend baseball. And number 10, get out and touch nature, get your feet in the grass and ground yourself. And, steve, what's the one that for you. You're like, you know what I got to start doing that one to help with my stress and anxiety well, it's a tie for me.
Speaker 1:I think my two favorites are serve others and find fun things to do. I can't differentiate between the two and honestly, you could combine those. I find it fun to serve other people and if you think it's a chore, okay, but I think it's fun because it's very rewarding and you make friendships too. So it fits in with what? Number 10, or at least number nine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a two-edged sword. It's good. Okay, works for me, all right, good.
Speaker 2:Well, for me, I mean the exercise one when I get my happy endorphins on. I know it, you've become an exercise I am. I'm kind of an exercise fiend, but the one that I probably need to work on the most is the community, because I am one of those introverted melancholy or people you used to call me square britches, and the kids used to say every party needs a pooper.
Speaker 2:That's why we invited you yes yes, and and so it's easy for me, especially when you're on the road, to go. Well, I could get together with friends, or I could just stay home by myself, and and I know that I need that outlet of community, so so that's an important one for me. So that's our episode for today and next episode don't get anxious about this we're going to start talking about communication, because that's just such a huge topic and, honestly, so much of the strife in our life is caused by communication. You know, the word of God says out of a little mouth comes a whole fire.
Speaker 1:We wrote a best-selling book on communication.
Speaker 2:We did, so we're going to do some of the highlights of that book. All right, we'll see you next time. I'm Megan Scheibner, with my co-host, dr Steve, and this has been Death by Adulting. Remember, when it comes to adulting you don't have to like it.
Speaker 1:You just have to do it.